What Powers Will the New Italian Senate Have?

ITALY'S NEW CONSTITUTIONAL ARCHITECTURE (IF IT PASSES THE REFERENDUM TEST) TAKES THE VOTE OF CONFIDENCE AWAY FROM A SENATE DEFINED ON THE BASIS OF REGIONAL REPRESENTATION, BUT THE UPPER HOUSE WILL STILL BE ABLE TO BLOCK BUDGET LAWS

by Edmondo Mostacci, Dept. of Legal Studies, Bocconi
Translated by Alex Foti

The main element of the constitutional reform which will be put to referendum for voters' approval, is to overcome the strict bicameralism of the Italian political system, with the power of confidence vote on governments now taken away from the Senate and  entrusted solely to the Chamber of Deputies. This operation, given the impracticality of abolishing the Senate and the need to differentiate between the principles of legitimacy underlying both Houses' powers to justify their different institutional weight, almost by necessity has led reformers to make the Upper House the representative chamber of local and regional government, elected by organs selected by their respective constituencies.

Within this framework, the chosen mode of election and the powers given to the second chamber are of great importance for overall constitutional balance and the aim of the new institutional architecture to be attained.

On the first question, the choice made by the legislature for the constitutional amendment follows the Austrian system: according to the new Constitution, Senators will be elected by the Regional councils according to a proportional voting system. As a result, representation of each Region will end up being fragmented along differing party lines.

This will affect the type of representation that the new Senate is expected to express. In fact, the priority of regional representation clashes with the imperatives political party allegiance, so that an Italian Senator will have to respond to two potentially contradictory priorities: to voice the interests of his/her Region or City of provenance, as defined by the political and administrative majority currently in office in local government, or, potentially opposite to the first, to follow the positions taken by the party at the national level. In other words, the future composition of the Senate seems to combine two distant ides of representation, one territorial and the other national, with priorities of the latter that could tend to prevail on priorities of the former.

This is joined with the powers under the new Senate is endowed with, which are still quite significant. On the one hand, laws that need approval by both Houses relate to all matters that, even indirectly, affect the institutional balance of the state; on the other, the Senate is given the power to propose, although within the short delay of 15 days, changes to the budget stability law, which determines the economic and financial perimeter of the main political decisions. It is true that this is surmountable with a new voting resolution by the Chamber; however, the tightly defined political process to pass budget laws, which are always subject to a wide variety of pressures, is such that the annual government budget can be easily put in check by the Senate even with reduced powers like those delineated. It is no coincidence, in fact, that in many countries, including Austria, the upper chamber is fundamentally excluded from the budget process, while there are other systems where, as in the French case, the government has supplementary powers of decision in the last resort.

The opportunity to influence the issues that define the political direction of government would have an impact on the type of representation expressed by the Upper House, emphasizing its tendency to deal with issues of general political interest, at the expense of its ability as to represent local interests. In the event of a situation where political forces the are in the opposition in the Chamber are instead majority in the Senate, this could result in two consequences: that it becomes a mere forum for minorities, to the detriment of the intelligibility of public debate, and above all that, by making full use of its powers and exploiting possible contradictions in the governing majority, the Senate would be able to put a brake on the overall aspirations of the new constitutional design. Only actual experience, if there is one in the sense that referendum voters ratify the reform passed by Parliament, will tell whether the Senate's new combination of powers and mode of election is good constitutional alchemy.